


Another Beautiful Day

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, M/M, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-06-14
Updated: 2005-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-20 20:28:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11342649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Another beautiful day that feels like breathing pulverized glass. *Weather* Lyric Wheel entry.





	Another Beautiful Day

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

Another Beautiful Day

### Another Beautiful Day

#### by Griva

  


Title: Another Beautiful Day   
Author name: Griva   
Rating: PG  
Notes: written for the _Weather_ Lyric Wheel. Thanks to Ursula for U2 lyrics. Lyrics in the story are separated by ///. Inner thoughts are separated by /. 

Dedicated to 

* * *

/// You're on the road   
But you've got no destination   
You're in the mud   
In the maze of his imagination./// 

I think I like him. I really do. 

But I don't really know what I'm thinking or how I'm thinking or why I'm thinking it. I can't clearly process any of my thoughts any more. It used to be so simple. You have a problem, you analyse it, you list possible theories as to how the problem has come about, then you list possible solutions to the said problem. It's a simple mathematical process. I'm not only good at the methodical analysis of psycho-social factors that make a docile father of twins take a knife and start carving pentagrams on still warm bodies. You just don't become a profiler if you don't have a rational streak, have one foot on the solid ground. This isn't so simple. Nothing seems to be simple anymore. I can't think straight. Having feelings for a friend was complicated enough. Bless Scully the Sensible for all the non-verbal signals she transmitted as powerfully as Arecibo Complex she is happy with us who we are. AS we are. But this is even more so. He is not even a friend. Just a partner. A Junior one. An ingenue. 

Those who pretend they know Spooky Mulder would sneer, but I try to have an optimistic outlook on life. It's difficult when you've led a life like mine, and when you've faced so much adversity it seems easier to just curl up and shut yourself away from the world. That's how I used to feel every time I faced the wall, be it of scoffing official stone-asses or circling another no trespassing area, topped with barb-wire and too high for me to climb over. 

I'm lost like Theseus in the Labyrinth of my own wants, needs and desires. 

Women have always been just a dessert serving after an official banquet when I had one scotch too many. Or they were a side-dish to go with three bitter beers on the road home after an exhausted week. Or like the free salted peanuts next to the beer dispenser. 

There was nothing wrong with going to bed with someone of my own sex. I was very close once, but it just didn't...work out. Mercy fucks are pathetic. And I liked him too much to debase our friendship. To use it as testing grounds for my sexuality. So I concluded that men did not fill my plate. So why am I sitting here, devouring him with my eyes, just for a few moments, using his self-absorbedness and indignation ranting about an over-speeding ticket while he was carrying out one of my errands. How convenient it is, so that he does not to catch me staring, but saying nothing? Most of his steam is out, he's speaking to me now. Lips like a scimitar and the skin knotted delectably above his nose. 

"...So then I said to him that it didn't matter what the hell he thought, I was bloody well going to do it anyway..." 

I can't even remember who or what he's talking about, but his words stay with me all the same. /It didn't matter what the hell he thought./ I wish I could say the same. I wish I could just not care. Maybe this is all a big mistake. 

/// You thought you'd found a friend   
To take you out of this place   
Someone you could lend a hand   
In return for grace./// 

I think it all started about three weeks ago when I first laid my eyes on him. It was a bad year for me, to start with. A bone-aching month. My reassignment, being diminished to a taperecorder -man hurt me more than ever. I don't know why things got so bad, why I was no longer only bleeding outwardly from bruises and scratches of my exploits of the paranormal, but also bleeding inwardly from exhausting conflicts that broke me down. My neglected alter ego, inside me yearned for a transformation, and it tore me apart. Like a werewolf. And not just during the full moon, but every single day. Everyday I fought to keep a hold of the anger that consumed my body and mind. I hated my job. Even the fact that it gave me plentiful opportunities to use the state resources looking for Sam did not add to its value. 

/A gambler is nothing but a man who makes his living out of hope. And so is a man in love./ 

I've never felt love before, towards anyone with an Y chromosome so sudden and so ... _obvious_. So this new feeling frightened and disgusted me. Frightened, because it was all so new and different and unexplored but exciting. Disgusted, because something inside told me it was wrong. But how could it be wrong when it just felt so good? An explosion of delicious sensations: hope, fear, warmth, dizziness, longing... I just ached. My mind, body, soul, heart just ached for him. 

It could have been just lust. No wonder. I got laid last time seven months ago. But it was not. When did I start feeling that I could face the pain inflicted upon me if only to have him near me when it was over. I would go through the rejection, ostracism and sadness a hundred times over and a hundred times again if he could be mine. 

But I was frustrated because I just didn't know why. What defines the moment when your relationship with someone transcends friendship and becomes love? I know there's a fine line between love, and being in love. I loved Sam because she adored her Big Brother and she had soft braids and an innocent smile. I loved my mother but this love departed as soon as I turned of age. I wasn't dependent on her any more. I loved my Oxford friends, though the general unspoken rule of preserving our masculinity forbade that any of us should admit this. But was not in love with any of them. Not before. 

Now there is one. 

Alex. 

/// Touch me   
Take me to that other place   
Teach me   
I know I'm not a hopeless case./// 

I looked back down, sighing almost inaudibly. I stared at the line in the case-file I had re-read at least four times. This was getting stupid. Every time I was near my Junior, which happened to be a substantial amount of the morning, afternoon, and evening, I would go to pieces. Every single gesture, every single word... I looked desperately for some sort of sign that he felt the same way I did. And every time I ended up being bitterly disappointed. Because how could Krycek feel the same way? It was true that I would never know unless I took action to find out. Yeah, confess. The sure way of getting nothing from something. And then getting hurt and shattered. But what was I expecting? For Krycek to say, "Sure, I'm struck all of a sudden too, and coincidentally, I fancy you. Wanna snog passionately for hours?" Even in my mind the words sounded ridiculous. It was just too unlikely that the one person I'd ever been mindlessly, illogically smitten with would dare to return these feelings. The risks I'd face when challenging Krycek - personal, professional... 

I just realized he has stopped talking a while ago. Which is nothing abnormal. 

Krycek squinted against the tiny sunray, piercing the dusty air like a dagger. 

"It's a beautiful day," he suddenly said, finger hooked in the slack collar of his shirt. "Fuck that moron... Are we done with the statistics and the press-release for today?" 

I didn't answer immediately although his work was indeed done for today. I was preserving my senior status. The paper was sticking to my damp fingers, the tie I used to pride myself in, holding back the oxygen I needed so much to clear my mind. 

Languidly he took the jacket from the chair and slung it carelessly over the shoulder, I waited for him to come up with a persuasive excuse to leave. It wasn't yet 7 p.m. 

"Mulder? Are we...through?" He asked again, lips slightly pouting. Like a woman's. Like...mine. 

Interpreting my surly silence as a veto, reluctantly resigned, Krycek took two steps and put his free hand on the stack of folders. I prayed he doesn't do what he usually does. He did - pushed the files away and leaned over, on hip on the edge of the table, eyes questioning. His hair was ruffled from too much finger-combing (like mine) and when he was anticipating a reply, he used to look at me unblinking, lips slightly parting (like mine). 

"You still...need me down here?" He asked smoothly, almost _softly_. 

I blinked, edgily. "Er..." It was impossible for me to process any coherent thoughts with Krycek so close I could feel a warm breath on his face. Minutes seemed to pass and still I just sat there staring unblinkingly into his dark eyes. Subconsciously I licked my cracked lips, which had begun to feel unnecessarily dry, and swallowed, trying to control my increasingly labored breathing. /If only Krycek would look away! He usually did, when my silence was a sign of scorn. I knew how to make people shrink from one smug look. Mulder. FBI. Blah Blah. Cum Laudum. Golden Boy./ But today Krycek seemed to show no signs of looking anywhere else but straight into my eyes. Panicking for a second, I wondered if Krycek had suddenly developed telepathy, and could read every single hopeful thought racing through my mind at that moment. At least that way would be easier than telling him to his face. Krycek seemed to be thinking deeply. He cocked his head to one side and reached one hand towards my face. Tooms' victims must have felt same paralysis. Panic, fright, desire and overwhelming hope flashed through me in an instant. 

/What is he _doing_?/ 

Placing one hand on my upper arm, Krycek inched closer to me, our shoulders touching slightly. /What will he do _now_?/ If Skinner suddenly decided to pay me a visit, I'd have a lot to explain. I tried to snort. No air. Hot dust. Holding my breath, an excruciating pulsation in my brain, I vainly tried to slow my racing heart as the tension in the air reached an overpowering climax. I closed my eyes, not daring to hope, but hoping all the same. 

His fingers skimmed lightly down my shoulder, over the shirt that I wished to dissolve under his touch, only to shortly touch my right hand, the one I kept in my lap. All my blood seemed to have rushed in my face. I haven't blushed for...for...couldn't make my memory work and count the years. 

"Mulder, you have just broken your pen," Krycek peered at the piece of stationery in question I gripped in my fist. "The ink is leaking...on your knee." 

/When in doubt, wear red./ This is what she used to say. Phoebe. My first and last foray into head-over-heels. Champaign, sex on the graveyard and daggers with her every word. A masochistic crush. No love. It didn't hurt at all when we cursed each other farewell. 

His fingers lingered for a moment, or so my mind lied to me. Then Krycek straightened, got off from my desk looking at me askance, in mild incomprehension. Or expertly masked amusement. 

My hands went cold in a second. The pain was quick, and sobering as I bit the inside of my cheek. Hard. It's been raw there for the last few days. I cursed loudly per proforma, dropped the sticky pen, and stood up to estimate the damage. 

"People seldom notice your clothes if you wear a big smile." The sarcasm and my sparkling wit has covered my ass otherwise poorly equipped for handling shattered hopes. 

Krycek laughed at that. For the first time I ever heard. It was a low sound, reverberating and ...intimate. It lit up his eyes. Only those who are innocent or evil beyond redemption could have such a laugh. I could see the ridge of his teeth glimmer and his hair fall back from his forehead. Looked away in a hurry, at the black stain on my knee. 

I couldn't care less about the suit-pants. I pushed the papers away, staining them with my dirty hand, flung the broken pen into the dustbin and missed. Scowled. Turned away. The idea of Krycek tilting into me to...to kiss me was ludicrous. My chest hurt with disappointment as if I took a handful of pulverized glass with my coffee. Or as if those skin-eating prehistoric beetles have invaded my lungs again. Ready to storm out of the office, I stepped on the floor where the single sunray fractured it. 

"See you tomorrow then, Mulder," Krycek's voice caught up with me in the doorway. He was still a little breathless from the laugh. I nodded, without looking back and mumbled "Eight a.m. Sharp." 

Like hope, the sun will be up tomorrow. Like an affliction, my heartache will be back together with the Junior next morning. It would be another beautiful day for him, and he didn't have to know...and it was all am I left with. 

... another beautiful day alone. 

/end 

May 2005.   
  

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Griva


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